ABSTRACT
Heraclides of Pontus is still said to have anticipated Tycho Brahe by theorizing that Venus and Mercury revolve about the Sun, while the Sun in its turn revolves about an Earth that rotates diurnally. This “theory” is nothing but a reconstruction proposed no earlier than the nineteenth century (see Eastwood 1992, 233 with n. 2), an era when historians of science knew much less than they do today about ancient astronomy and often speculated rashly about alleged forerunners of modern theories without carefully interpreting the ancient source material.
